Authors: Siri Mitchell
Constant Heart (48 page)
“Aye, my lord. It would be a great honor to fetch him for you myself.”
I lifted my eyes from the fire and looked at him. “Thank you.”
The door opened, and the wind pushed snowflakes into the room. Behind the snow stomped my men, with Falconer bringing up the rear.
“Why did Falconer insist on coming with us?”
“I would guess, my lord, that it has something to do with my lady’s Joan.”
“With Joan?”
“Aye, my lord. I seem to recall that you also once wanted, very much, to marry that woman yourself.”
I turned a bit more in my chair toward the men to see just what kind of man Falconer might be. He was brilliant with birds, of course, but was he good enough for Marget’s closest friend?
As the man turned toward the fire, he saw me looking at him and he looked right back at me.
He might just do. And in the wilds of Polonia, one thing was certain: there would be land, and plenty of it, for hawking.
“Nicholas?”
“Aye, my lord.”
“I may have need of one thing more this spring . . .”
As soon as my men had joined us, the publican brought our food. “A fearsome day for traveling, my lord.”
“Aye.”
“And you head north?”
“Aye.”
“Then you will be more miserable still.”
Joan and I rose with the sun, could not in fact help it since its rays gleamed off every snowflake. At least the storm had gone. She helped me to dress. We ate with the men and then we saddled up and took once more to the road, traveling south.
We were hardly a mile into our journey when, in looking round, I realized I had left my coffer at the inn. I drew my horse to a stop.
Joan pushed back her hood. “Have you changed your mind?”
“Nay. I left my coffer.”
“I have it here.”
“Not that one. The other. The one the earl gave me . . .”
She glanced back at the road we had just traveled. “He can give you a dozen others just like it.”
But I wanted that one, for it had the sonnet in it. The one that . . . he had not written. And yet I could not leave it behind.
Beside us, the horses of the men stomped and snorted.
I pulled on my reins, causing my horse to turn, hardly daring to glance at the men as I did so. “We must return. I have forgotten a thing at the inn.”
“Good heavens, Marget!”
“I cannot leave it.”
“But you can leave us dead or dying on some road in the dead of winter in order to reach Holleystone!” Joan muttered all the way back to Ware.
The next morn, we awoke to a world bleached by snow.
“ ’Twill be hard to follow any kind of road in this stuff, my lord.”
“I have no choice.”
“You could turn south, my lord. To Dover.”
“Without Marget?”
“I could accompany her to Polonia in the spring, my lord.”
“Nay.”
“The further north we go, my lord, the worse the roads may become.”
“I have no choice.”
“You have
two
choices.”
“One of which I am unwilling to choose. And so there is only one. And my Gentleman of the Horse had better see to the horses!”
While Nicholas stomped out of the place, I ate more bread. Drank more wine. Stood closer to the fire to try to persuade the remaining damp from my boots.
At last, Nicholas opened the door, noted that he and the men were ready, and met with the publican to settle our bill. As I hoisted myself into the saddle and began to start out, Nicholas gestured to a path beaten down into the snow that led from the side of The Anchor Inn across the road from us. “Those people have the right idea, my lord. They ride
south
.”
I turned to follow that lonely track in the snow. Squinted against the sun’s glare and saw a group heading toward us. “And those people?”
Nicholas looked farther down the path at a group toward which I was pointing. “Must be as mad as you. My lord.”
I tried to hide my smile from him as I nudged the horse out onto the road with my knee. But I looked back once more and was startled to perceive two colors, crimson and azure, in a familiar combination. And even more surprised to see the very person for whom I had been looking.
“Marget!”
Was it . . . ? It was Lytham! He was sitting upon a horse right in front of us in the middle of the road as if he had nothing to do but watch us ride toward him. He was so very . . . dear . . . to me. And he could either take me to Polonia with him or send me back to Holleystone.
Please do not ask me to leave you or not to follow you.
I advanced until our horses were nose to nose.
And then he urged his horse forward two steps more and we were side-by-side. “Why did you go?”
It was cold. So very cold. But the snow’s chill could not compare to the sudden freeze spreading through my own heart. “Congratulations on your appointment. I am sure you will be very happy in Polonia.”
“
We
will be very happy there. I came home to take you with me and found you were not there!”
“I cannot go.”
“But why?”
“Because.”
“ ‘Because’ is a child’s answer.”
“I cannot go because . . . I love you.”
“And I consider that love to be the most valued of all of my possessions.” He reached a gloved hand down to caress my cheek.
“I am the cause of all of your troubles.”
“Who told you that?”
“Lady de Winter, and she said—”
“She is a serpent.”
“But she is right!”
“About what is she right?”
“About my being the cause of all of your troubles. Since the first day the Queen laid eyes on me, I have done nothing but degrade you in her eyes.”
“You have done nothing but love me with a constant heart.”
“But what has that love done for you? Nothing.”
“It has done everything! It has comforted me and sustained me; it has made me whole.”
“But I embarrassed you at court. I was banished. And you were disgraced.”
“And it has all been made right. We will go to Polonia and we will start our lives anew. Together.”
“But then you will have to leave Holleystone behind. If you would just let me leave, go back to King’s Lynn, then you could return to court, you could resume your position, and you would not have to leave Holleystone.”
“And how could I remain at Holleystone without you? You are its heart. You are its soul. ’Tis only with you in it that it means anything at all.”
“But if you go, you leave court . . . you leave the country. You leave the Queen. You give up everything.”
“Not everything. Do you not remember? ‘To you alone I give Love’s astrolabe / That in your sailing you might find the same—’ ”
“ ‘Gale winds that blew my soul to you to save / Might in return give you to me to claim.’ But you never wrote that.”
“I would have if I had known of this end from the beginning. And I would sail to the ends of the earth to find you. But do not make me do it. Claim me now. Love me.”
“I do. I love you. I will ever love you.”
“And I, you.” He pulled me close and kissed me. “Now, please, may we go to Polonia? There is a cell in the Tower waiting for me if we miss the last ship to the Continent.”
And so we rode to Dover together, our past behind us, our future before us, and not without a little fear. For in the wilds of the East, who knew what we might find? But greater than our fears were our hopes. And our dreams. God was for us, how could we doubt that? With constant hearts we had chosen love, and He had perhaps not rewarded us, but He had rescued us. He had set our feet on a new path. An honorable path. And with our love now fixed between us, we would let nothing separate us again.
Marget, Lytham, and Lady de Winter never lived, but their experiences were all too real and occurred all too often during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Lead poisoning was not uncommon when court women began to follow their Queen in fashion. Queen Elizabeth I used lead paint foundation and mercury sulphide rouge to hide the ravages of smallpox and disguise the advance of age. Noblewomen happily followed her example. Ceruse, or lead paint, was the Renaissance’s answer to wrinkles and aging. We now know that it only caused premature aging of the skin and sped women along the route toward death. Queen Elizabeth I died on March 24, 1603, from blood poisoning. Some suspect the poisoning was due to lead.
The first symptoms of lead poisoning were only cosmetic. The paint dissolved hair follicles and then loosened the teeth. Continued use of the paint led to the rapid aging of skin, to which the answer was simply to coat the ceruse on in thicker layers. It was inside the body, however, where lead poisoning left its most insidious marks. Early on, the user would begin to have trouble with speech and recall and would manifest the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. Later, the women would experience tingling in their hands and feet, lethargy, and irritability, along with miscarriages, premature births, or stillbirths. With long-term use came difficulty in concentration, general fatigue, tremors, abdominal pain, headaches, vomiting, and weight loss. Eventually the women might experience paralysis, severe abdominal cramps, seizure, coma, and death.
I owe many thanks and much gratitude to the people who encouraged me as I wrote this book: to Beth Jusino, who gently nudged me forward; to Dave and Sarah Long, who graciously offered me both time and space; to Lanna Dickinson, Narelle Mollet, Trudy Mitchell, and Maureen Lang, whose enthusiasm for these pages sparked my own; to Linda Derrick, who prayed; to Ginger Garrett for sharing the dream; and especially, and always, to Tony.